Christmas Weekend Riding and Reading

I went for an exhilarating ride on Little Cayenne yesterday! It got up into the 20's, the sun was shining and the sky was blue. She was full of herself and determined that the neighbors falling trees and burning slash across the road were monsters. I finally rode her down to see them and she quickly determined that they were not that bad but monsters must be somewhere. Anywhere! Since our place is so icy, I long trotted her up the road, next to the pavement. When we hit the gravel road, I galloped her out. She's never been up there so the neighborhood goats, cows, large dogs, wolf (in a chain link pen) and miniature horses kept her motivated to move! I slowed her up and turned back for home after a mile or so. She moved out briskly but felt better. She had a closer look at all of the critters on the way home. There was still a couple hours of sunlight left so I tied her to the trailer with her cooler on to dry off. First I tied her to my incomplete hitching rail for a picture.

I found a great little article about Ima Little Lena in an old(April 1988) Appaloosa Journal the other night. Ima Little Lena is Smarty's maternal grandsire. A photo of him graced the cover of the magazine but I didn't recognize him. He was sitting like a dog with a rider (Bill Freeman) on board. I thought, "That's a cute little horse but what's he doing sitting on his butt?!" It turned out that it was Ima Little Lena after a round of cutting at the Augusta Cutting Horse Futurity. Apparently, he was the only Appaloosa out of 160 horses and one of 15 brothers and sisters sired by the AQHA stallion, Smart Little Lena. After Ima Little Lena's work in the semi-finals, Bill Freeman had him demonstrate his trick horse abilities by taking a bow. After cutting as the fourth horse in the finals, Ima Little Lena added laying down and sitting on his haunches like a dog to the show, resulting in a standing ovation from the crowd! The Appaloosa stallion ended up placing 5th out of the 160 horses in the Augusta futurity. I think that's mighty impressive! It's too bad he was sold overseas before siring more foals in the US.